Up to one-third of all cigarettes sold in Romania are smuggled into the country and sold without tax payments.

These smuggled cigarettes costs the government over one billion Euros in lost revenue.

Source:  Tevetelia Tsolova, “Cigarette tax hike backfires in Balkans,” Reuters, August 27, 2010.

Every year, there are an average of 20 or more museum art thefts in Paris.

Source:  Doreen Carvajal, “Art Theft Underworld Frustrates France,” New York Times, August 26, 2010.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) reported that 2,600 women who were working in UK brothers are confirmed human trafficking victims. Another 9,200 women were considered to be vulnerable and may have been trafficked, but were unable to fully confirm their status.

Of the estimated 30,000 women working in brothels in the United Kingdom, 17,000 were found to have been migrants from foreign countries.

Of the 2,600 confirmed trafficking victims, 2,200 were from Asia with a majority coming from China.

Source:  Michael Holden, “UK says 2,600 women trafficked to brothels,” Reuters, August 18, 2010.

Foreign citizens make up half of all arrests for organized crime activities in Spain, with many of them coming from Eastern Europe.

Source: “Spain’s Cocaine Trade Dominated by Bulgarians, Romanians,” Sofia News Agency, August 9, 2010.

Europol announced that organized crime groups in the European Union are able to purchase weapons such as rocket launchers and AK-47s for prices between 300 to 700 Euros ($398 to $929).

Source:  Stephen Fidler, “Going Cheap in the EU: AK-47s,” Wall Street Journal, Real Time Brussels Blog, July 15, 2010.

In 2009, European Authorities seized 118 million articles of counterfeit goods from entering the union.

The largest category of counterfeit good was clothing, with 27 percent of all seizures being fake clothing.

64 percent of all counterfeit goods seized was from China, a 10 percent increase in the amount of goods seized in 2008.

Source: “EU reports growth in fake goods from China,” BBC News, July 22, 2010.

Between 2006 and 2008, the United Nations reported that half of all ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean heading towards Europe that were seized carrying cocaine departed from Venezuela.

By comparison, 5 percent of ships seized carrying cocaine departed from Colombia.

Source:  Chris Hawley, “Venezuela drug trade booms,” USA Today, July 21, 2010.

The European Central Bank reported that 387,000 counterfeit banknotes were removed from circulation in the first six months of 2010.

The most removed counterfeit Euro was the 50 euro bill, which accounted for 42.5 percent of all counterfeits removed, followed by the 20 Euro bill, which accounted for 41.5 percent of all counterfeit removed.

Source:  AFP, “Number of fake euro banknotes falls,” Google News, July 19, 2010.

Police on the Spanish island of Ibiza state that 40,000 Ecstasy pills are sold every day between June and September.

Organized by British drug gangs from Liverpool and Manchester, ecstasy pills are sold for $6 (5 Euros), as opposed to a bottle of beer sells for $15 (12 Euros) in the high end clubs on the island.

Source:  Fiona Govan, “Drug dealers sell 40,000 Ecstasy pills on Ibiza every day,” Telegraph, July 16, 2010.

In 2009, British American Tobacco reported that counterfeit cigarettes costs the company $120 Million (93 million Euros).

Source: Associated Press, “EU, BAT cooperate against illegal cigarette trade,” Google News, July 15, 2010.